Health provider expands emergency care in P-town

Saturday

May 30, 2009 at 2:00 AM

If you have chest pains in Provincetown this summer, you may still take the 50-mile trip in an ambulance to the hospital in Hyannis. But if you cut your finger, you may only have to go down the street.

MARY ANN BRAGG

PROVINCETOWN — If you have chest pains in Provincetown this summer, you may still take the 50-mile trip in an ambulance to the hospital in Hyannis. But if you cut your finger, you may only have to go down the street.

Beginning the weekend of July 3, Outer Cape Health Services and its affiliate, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, will begin an experiment: offering evening hours in Provincetown for urgent problems that can be handled in a doctor's office.

A cut finger, bad cough or sinus infection are some examples of things that could be handled, said Outer Cape Health Services chief executive director Roberta Berrien.

Outer Cape Health Services will provide the office space and medical support staff while Beth Israel Deaconess will provide the emergency room doctors, two for each eight-day rotation through mid-September.

The doctors will also be available as needed in Provincetown during the day, said Jayne Carvelli-Sheehan, vice-president of ambulatory and emergency services at Beth Israel Deaconess.

The evening service will be available every day of the week, Berrien said. Services will also be available from 5 to 9 p.m. weekdays and Saturday, and from 4 to 9 p.m. on Sunday.

"It's a little bit of an adventure for us," said Berrien. "It's hard to measure an unmet need. Until we do it, we don't know."

During the months of June, July and August, Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis has the busiest emergency room in New England, said Cape Cod Healthcare spokesman David Reilly. But the farther one travels east on the Cape, the options for medical care narrow.

For people who live in or visit the last few towns — Wellfleet, Truro and Provincetown — Outer Cape Health Services is an anchor for day-to-day health issues. A handful of family and internal medicine physicians practice privately on the Outer Cape as well.

But none has offered walk-in, off-hour services for urgent problems until now.

Outer Cape Health Services serves about 11,000 patients and has an annual operating budget of $6 million. It is also facing increasing budgetary pressures and the need to stabilize its finances, said Berrien, who was hired permanently in January.

Berrien announced layoffs of eight part- and full-time employees earlier this year.

For the new service to be financially viable, there need to be at least three patients an hour on average, Berrien said.

Both organizations are banking on their gut feelings that the new service is needed, said Berrien and Carvelli-Sheehan, who cited the heavy influx of summer tourists to the Outer Cape.

Berrien said that she still needs to talk with local rescue squad officials to coordinate services.

Yesterday, Provincetown Selectman Austin Knight said the new plan could take pressure off the town's emergency services.

The plan could also make it easier for townspeople and visitors to be taken care of, Knight said.

"This is a pilot and I hope it's successful," he said.

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